Sheila Dikshit misleading Delhiites on power supply issue: BJP

NEW DELHI: Delhi BJP today accused Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit of trying to "mislead" people by coming out with a "confusing" advertisement on the issue of power supply in the city.

In a joint statement, Delhi BJP chief Vijender Gupta and Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijay Kumar Malhotra slammed Dikshit for hike in power tariff and accused her government of taking sides of the private power distribution companies.

"People of Delhi have understood the reality of the Congress government during the last 14 years. Delhi government benefited the power companies by conniving with them. Today the common man in Delhi has to spend 50 per cent of his income to pay the power and water bills," they said.

The Delhi government today came out with a full-page advertisement in a number of dailies highlighting improvement in power sector following privatisation of power distribution.

Gupta and Malhotra said the government was trying to mislead people in view of next year's assembly polls.

"If the government is pro-people then it should have allowed the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) in 2010 to cut tariff by 23 per cent," said Gupta.

On May 4, 2010, the Delhi government, using a special power, had stalled DERC's decision to announce the annual tariff for 2010-11 till it re-examined the demands from discoms to increase the rates.

The DERC, which was making last minute preparations to announce the new tariff next day, after receiving the government directive had indicated that it had planned to cut tariff by 20 to 25 per cent as discoms would have a surplus of around Rs 4,000 crore if the existing tariff was not changed.

Although DERC was strongly arguing for a cut in tariff, the three-member regulator, following retirement and subsequent appointment of two new members, gave indication of taking a sympathetic approach to the demands of the discoms and hiked the tariff by 22 per cent in August last year and 26 per cent in June for domestic consumers.